This invention relates to a shooting equipment communicating system which can acquire information about regions and sites located at a destination while the system user is traveling in a vehicle and other means for transport or performing photography shooting with a camera at the destination.
In recent years, there has been a widespread use of a digital still camera (hereinafter referred to simply as a digital camera) equipped with a display which converts a still picture to a digital signal for recording of the picture by using a CCD (charge coupled device) instead of a film. The display of a digital camera can display pictures taken after photography shooting and display picture information recorded onto a recording medium such as a Memory Stick™, a SmartMedia™ and a flexible disk, as well as serve as a monitor during photography shooting.
For example, the JP 2000-105431 A discloses a print system which records information about a shooting site to enhance the taste, entertainment and convenience of photography shooting, information about the target of shooting, and picture information and text information such as entertainment information onto a recording medium including an IC memory and a flexible disk, and which displays on a display the picture information and text information recorded onto the recording medium during photography shooting.
However, the print system disclosed in the JP 2000-105431 A has a problem that it is necessary to request a printing agency to record the above-mentioned various information onto a recording medium prior to shooting. That is, acquisition of information is cumbersome according to the print system.
The storage capacity of a recording medium is limited so that it can hold only a certain amount of information. Thus it is impossible to acquire detailed and to-the-point information and up-to-date information at a destination.
The above-mentioned print system identifies a subject through pattern recognition thus acquiring information about the subject. The pattern recognition requires a high-performance CPU so that it is impossible to acquire information about a subject without using a digital camera equipped with a high-performance CPU.
In particular, it is impossible to acquire, as required, information about a subject under photography shooting at a sightseeing spot during a trip.